| Segments include: Earth: A Comfortable Place - How a unique mix of elements allows life on Earth to flourish; also, a comparison of Earth's temperature to the Moon's. Heating the Earth - How light is transformed into the energy that heats the Earth. Origins of the Solar System - Animation takes us back five billion years. Earth: Prime Location for Life - Why Earth is one of only three planets in our solar system that could potentially support carbon-based life forms. 07DR IJSCA 11 min. |
| Segments include: Life: Setting the Stage 1 - How life may have evolved in the seas billions of years ago. Life: Setting the Stage 2 - The division of life and the beginning of the oxygen-carbon dioxide interchange. Life: Setting the Stage 3 - Early oxygen-breathing organisms begin to eat plants to release their stored energy. Life: Setting the Stage 4 - How life moved from the sea onto the land. 07DR IJSCA 11 min. |
| Segments include: Greenhouse Effect 1: Normal - How the Greenhouse Effect impacts the environment and what takes place in an actual greenhouse. Greenhouse Effect 2: Runaway - How human-created excesses of carbon dioxide contribute to planetary warming. The Biosphere - The chemical interactions between the geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere. Extinction of Species - How global warming can destroy species that cannot adapt quickly enough and how their demise can break entire food chains. 07DR IJSCA 11 min. |
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"Recommended. The narrator reviews, with much colorful
footage from the natural world, how carbon is responsible for life. He
further outlines the complete dependence of animal life upon plant life,
i.e. how plants remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through
photosynthesis and return oxygen to it, thereby providing animals with
breathable oxygen as well as nutrition when plants are used as food sources.
The two segments that deal with the carbon cycle in biology and geology are
Cycles 1 and 2. Cycle 3 summarizes how man and his technology have resulted
in the disruption of the carbon cycle balance by the burning of fossil fuels
and a steady and continuous heating of the earth’s environment since the
Industrial Revolution." -ERMO Review Segments include: Carbon: Backbone of Life - The importance of carbon to life on Earth and how plants "process" atmospheric carbon into a form that animals can use. Carbon Cycle 1: Fast Cycle - How carbon atoms pass from the atmosphere to plants to animals and back to the atmosphere. Carbon Cycle 2: Slow Cycle - How carbon is transformed under the earth into petroleum, coal and gas. Carbon Cycle 3: Out of Kilter - How humans interfere with the carbon cycle and the atmosphere by mining, drilling and burning fossil fuels. 07DR IJSCA 11 min. |
| Segments include: Soil 1: Artificial - A look at requirements in a closed or artificial growing system and the difference between natural plant growth and a hydroponics set-up. Soil 2: Formation - What normal soil consists of and how it is formed. Root Systems 1: Fungi Helpers - How plants rely on fungi to survive and the importance of nitrogen fixing. Root Systems 2: Nitrogen Fixers - How nitrogen passes from decomposers to fungi; then to plants via their root-hairs. Root Systems 3: Humus - A close look at soil decomposers and how they secrete nitrogen into humus for later retrieval by plants. 07DR IJSCA 13 min. |
| Segments include: Acids 1: pH Scale - An introduction to acids and the pH scale; plus a look at the origins of acid rain. Acids 2: Acid Rain - Where various acids and bases rank on the pH scale; plus the most damaging forms of acid rain, caused by sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. Acids 3: Acid Death - A look at "Lake 223" and how scientists have watched as its ecosystem was destroyed by acid rain. Acids 4: Death of a Tree - Shows the deadly process called leeching, where acid rain seeps into soil and then plants. 07DR IJSCA 11 min. |
| Segments include: What is Water? - How one slightly negative oxygen atom combines with two slightly positive hydrogen atoms and attract each other to form water. Salinity - How water can carry dissolved minerals and chemicals; also how magnetic charges within water molecules separates sodium and chlorine atoms. The Water Cycle - Illustrates the water cycle: evaporation, condensation and precipitation. Cleaning Water 1: Treatment - The historical abuses of water systems; also how modern sewage treatments aren't as clean as one would assume. Cleaning Water 2: Pollutants - A frightening look at why heavy metals, PCBs and dioxins can't be removed from drinking water and how they are moving into the environment and up the food chain. Aquifers - Shows how farmers in the central plains of the U.S. are using up the water from the Ogallala Aquifer faster than it can be replenished by rain. 07DR IJSCA 16 min. |